Pauley Perrette says she is officially retired from acting, nearly four-and-a-half years after CBS cancelled the NCIS vet’s one-and-done Broke sitcom.
“I’m not ungrateful for the benefits that [acting] gave to me,” Perrette, who played NCIS‘ Abby Sciuto for the CBS drama’s first 15 seasons, told HELLO! “But I’m a different person now and… I want to be me all the time. [it] takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”
“At this point in my life I have this deep need to find authenticity in everything,” Perrette who now produces documentaries, added. “[B]eing an actor, especially at certain points in my life, was a great escape; it’s like a drug because I didn’t have to be me, I could be somebody else.” As such, “going back to being an actor would be taking away from this life of true authenticity that I’m living 100% of the time.”
Not long after wrapping her NCIS run, Perrette was cast in the CBS sitcom Broke, which got the hook after just 13 episodes. Even so, Perrette said at the time, “This show restored my faith in people, in this industry. SO GRATEFUL I worked with this cast [and] crew. Best people I’ve EVER worked with. Healed me. Changed me. Made me whole. So Blessed.”
In June 2019, one year after cryptically alluding to “multiple physical assaults” on the NCIS set and alleging that a “very rich, very powerful publicity ‘machine’” was “keeping [her] silent,” Perrette shed light on those claims — and in doing so put then-NCIS lead/executive producer Mark Harmon in the crosshairs.
In a tweet that didn’t appear to be in response to anything in particular, Perrette wrote, “NO I AM NOT COMING BACK! EVER! (Please stop asking?) I am terrified of Harmon and him attacking me. I have nightmares about it.”
Hours later, she followed up that tweet with close-up photos of a crew member who, lore has it, was bitten by Harmon’s dog on-set in October 2016. (TMZ reported at the time that the crew member had been “roughhousing” with Harmon’s three-year-old pit bull mix, and required 16 stitches for his injury.)
“You think I didn’t expect blow back? You got me wrong,” Perrette wrote alongside the dog bite photos. “THIS happened To my crew member and I fought like hell to keep it from happening again! To protect my crew! And then I was physically assaulted for saying NO!? and I lost my job.”
Weeks later, TVLine asked then-CBS entertainment president Kelly Kahl about Perrette’s recurring allegations, and he said, “I can’t speak to what she’s addressing in her tweets. She did come to us a couple years ago with a workplace concern. We immediately investigated it and we resolved it to everyone’s satisfaction.”